My suggestion would be to try using the UT2004 Classic Sniper rifle with 1 second fire time, it feels awful
The q2 rail has a realllly small delay from pressing fire to shooting. It used to (when q2 was a topic, so perhaps up to early ql) got commented on fairly often as “feeling really nice, the best quake rail!” yet it had built in lag. The players that made these statements often did not realise there was delay.
(+10 per 100ms) and firing is way too long for a weapon to be effective with faster pull out speed. Want to dink that guy after hitting him with a rocket? This weapon won’t do that. Maybe the ut4 LG is fun to include somewhere (personally I think it is garbage but whatevs) but this isn’t rail, or a sniper weapon in ut context.
People seem to dislike rail/sniper for whatever reason – see the discussions about projectile sniper during ut4, see the continual toning down of rail in quake since quake 3 – ql 70, qc lower with extra zoomed?
At any rate I agree with controlling the use of the long range, instant hit weapon. Mainly because when other weapons stop being effective at 50m (or whatever) and one other will go to infinity, and in some ways become easier to use at longer range, it creates a vast gap in maps where only one weapon is viable. This gap is either not considered or specifically concentrated on like in sniper specific maps.
Projectile sniper is trying to fix this aspect by making it harder (or “more skillful” depending on your point of view) to hit the target. Zoom sniper in QC is trying to add a layer of.. what is best described as clunk.. on top of normal rail use to deal a small amount of extra damage.
Ultimately they are both trying to achieve the same thing, pull rail back under control so it is less powerful, meaning it infringes on other weapons use less.
Anyway enough rant, back to the “charge up” idea and q2 delay.
I recently got hack to add a delay to the rail in his game, glitch arena. This was “inspired” by memories of q2 rail being loved. In short what we ended up with was horrible as wail says – however this was in part due to the length of the delay. I think it was 3-400ms when q2 is much lower. I did not pursue polishing this particular aspect because.. he hated it.
Why a delay? A small delay lessens the effectiveness of flick shots and forces the player to track the target for a split second. This, combined with a fast moving target adds controllable variance that the player can over come by being better at tracking the target when it is under the crosshair, or timing the shot to go off as it crosses under the crosshair.
Ultimately what I got hack to try in glitch was too long and I couldn’t hit squat. However when I did hit? It felt very satisfying. Similar in feeling to hitting air shots using slow ROF projectiles. But overall it was bad because it was too long.
Headshots play in here as well, and while headshots could be done well (see OW), ut historically has not done them well. This is a combination of factors; netcode, hitboxes, player visibility, etc. In order to add flavor to the sniper weapon, instead of headshot have charge up damage – but limit this heavily. Charging from zero to 100 over 1000ms feels horrible and changes the weapons identity too much, at least for my taste. However having a weapon that has a ~100ms delay but can fire instantly if released adds depth to the weapon. So we could say that base damage is 70, and with 90ms we add 10 damage/30ms, capping at 100. or 99, or whatever. The number isn’t important. When fully charged the weapon automatically discharges, no saving it to plink people.
So base damage is 70. Fully charged, which takes 90ms is 100 but the charging makes it more difficult to hit. We have no headshots but introduce another mechanic that removes the random aspect of headshots while still rewarding a type of aim.
There is a problem here, as you want the base 70 damage to feel snappy on discharge – there is some way to achieve this as it is similar to how mario jump operates (I believe).
Why would you just not shoot twice for 2*70 if it is easier? If we are talking about a rail style swap off (superior way to manage long range weapons in close) the refire gets in the way. There may not be enough time for the second shot (target leaves the area/gets to close range/etc during refire). Have the charged time refunded from the refire time so shooting charged shots is higher DPS. The charge time is short enugh that this shouldn’t interfere too much with things.
To further differentiate have damage numbers for other weapons that play well with both the low and high end here. So if shock deals 40 damage then charging for followup shot on a player that has no armor/additional health is wasted time/potential lowering hit % for no reason. On the flip side hitting a direct rocket for 100 on a player with 100h/100a means that a charged followup shot is the way to go – and advised if you bounced them for maximum sytle points. Pulse balls dealing 15dmg means 2 is 30 and then an uncharged rifle would finish a fresh spawn. Having a batch of these mix ups adds some interest and things for players to remember.
The goal here would be to make it not feel like garbage and always have a delay before shooting. The charge amount would be open to testing but the damage should cap out around 100, rather than the much higher headshot damage that ut has historically given us. Graphically this could be done as a laser – when you start shooting the beam is “wider” and deals less damage. As it charges it narrows until it goes off. This may feel nasty with would need testing.
I hate that in QC that if I fire railgun I’m defenseless for some time
In quake I like it very much that a player using rail at the incorrect range/situation is left holding their dick so I can shoot them in the face. The solution is to swap weapons rather than shooting as switch time is faster. Ultimately it is a great balancing mechanic for long range weapons. The same behaviour is there for rockets but in that case it is not as noticeable because a situation where you wanted something else and fired a rocket instead is much rarer. eg you shoot a rocket at long distance and the swap time, even if it were as long as rail, is not important because the other player isn’t going to get in your face. The same way that using rail at is ok at long range.
Why wouldn’t one switch weapons to shoot even though the gun is on cooldown?
Why wouldn’t you change weapon? The easy answer is because “we” made the game that way and from a balance perspective it works really well. When all the weapons behave the same way this isn’t a huge issue imo. It could be messaged better, via audio (very distinctive reload click, perhaps the same across weapons) visually (weapon model, HUD ammo changing and possible also a HUD “timer” to show the refire for new players). I never really came across players that did not understand what was going on, even 20 years ago. Even in “realistic” games like CS where the slow fire AWP needs to be reloaded players don’t really question this behaviour. At a base level they simply think that the low rate of fire is the trade off for high damage without seeing the bigger picture. Refire and rail is an elegant solution to the infinite range problem. Its like peas and carrots.
Because this is the spitballing channel lets pretend we want refire to play a role as well as allowing players switch off faster.
One solution is allowing swapping off after shooting but not allowing shooting (again) of a “used” weapon until it is reloaded. For example – shoot long reload weapon – swap to another weapon – when swapping back to the first weapon the refire animation/sound/etc needs to be played.
This does not have quite the same impact as shooting rail at close range because the downside (left holding rail) is removed as soon as the player switches. but it does put limits on weapons and forces the player to “reload”. It would also open up weaker weapons being possibly more useful in a string of weapon swaps, culminating in something like pulse which has a very fast refire time. After this chain when the player switches back to rockets, rail, flak, etc refire occurs before they can shoot that weapon again.
It does not achieve the same result as making the player wait, but it does let them change and it has its own draw backs. These draw backs might be too large. They might cause awkward combat due to needing to manually time switches off weapons or cause players to end up with “empty” quiver. Perhaps this could be circumvented by holding weapon binds to change or double tapping binds (problem with wheel). It also creates a situation where a player needs to keep track of what weapons are not “loaded” and swap back to them. This could possibly be addressed by automatically reloading all weapons after the player is out of combat for a set amount of time… in a perfect world playing off hand animations of them reloading while they move.
Longer refire is not possible with shorter switch times and trying to balance everything around one variable (switch) may be challenging or just flat out impossible. From memory you couldn’t turn the
Where to begin.
Firstly UT4 was not left in a good place if you want to talk about “skill”.
The mechanics required for either game is significantly higher than modern shooters. This is actually one thing that fortnite is doing acceptably – building adds a significant amount of mechanical skill to the game. I haven’t watched the OP video but I would bet that is the main aspect they concentrate on, playing that off against better gun mechanics in PUBG.
In quake and ut movement is very deep in comparison to modern shooters. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt99wfDKP9U) This a movement tutorial for reflex, which is heavily influenced by all three versions of quake. While not specifically quake this guy does an excellent job of laying it out in simple terms. You could consider this harder and adding more mechanical depth than aim.
Aim wise weapons are varied. Quakelive has three main types of weapons that require different aim and an additional two that are used sparingly. Fortnite and modern shooters have what, different variations on hit scan? Breaking this down a bit more we have (High damage, low rate of fire hitscan – rail), (low damage, high rate of fire hitscan with limited range – lightning gun), (High damage, low rate of fire projectile with splash – rockets). These are the three, the holy trinity in order to be as effective as possible. On top of this you have (high rate of fire, low damage projectiles – plasma gun) and (High damage, low rate of fire projectile with splash on an arch – grenade launcher). You need to be able to use all of them.
Twitch/reflexes are not super important in the grand scheme of things. At least not on the same level as modern shooters with fast TTKs.
In modern shooters controlling your weapon recoil/bloom/whatever mechanic the developer picks vs a slow moving target that cannot avoid. In arena fps the player needs to aim while at the same time avoiding their opponents shots/juking to put off their opponents aim. Both players doing this at the same time while considering positioning – so this is not a simple matter of just randomly strafing back and forth. This all occurs at fairly high speed adds further depth to combat.
The last point I will touch on is the primary competitive gametype in quakelive – duel. Positioning is an important skill in these games and because of the gametype (duel) is also highly dynamic. To understand this a quick rundown of duel and how it is played is required. In QL players fight over items, armors and megahealth being the primary ones. These respawn a set amount after they have been taken and keeping track of these is another skill that I won’t touch on. This makes the game extremely dynamic but also gives it an underlying structure and reasons for players to fight.
Positioning ones self in order to contest the important spawns is key. However this goes beyond just being at the correct place on the map at the correct time, which in itself is challenging. We also need to consider some things:
– Personal stack. If you are too weak you cannot contest, or cannot contest directly. Perhaps instead go for some chip damage on the other player as they pick up the item.
– Enemy stack.
– The combination of both (You vs their stacks).
– Your weapons (and ammo). Depending on what you have in your kit dictates what sort of positions you can take.
– Their weapons
– The combination of the two allows you to potentially leverage holes in their arsenal to your advantage.
– Your location. Obvious, I am at X and need to get to Y – however I need to take into account :
– Their location in order to do so.
– Positioning in relation to the next spawn to give yourself the largest advantage possible.
– Future spawns. eg A player might want to contest/take Red Armor but we know that mega is up next in 5-7seconds, so they want to make sure to leave via left hand passage with faster route to mega rather than right hand passage which takes longer.
Some of these are known to the player and others are implied. What is my stack? Its on my HUD. What is my opponents stack? Well, that is harder to answer. What weapons do I have? Well.. again its on the HUD or in my memory from picking them up. What about my opponents weapons? What time is the mega spawning, if you missed the last spawn you can make an educated guess, if you missed the last two spawns you need to hang around nearby to get a spawn time then you can contest on the next spawn.
The two important items in quakelive are the Red Armor and the Megahealth. However there are also lesser armors that are useful. The RA (and armors) has a 25 second spawn and the Mega has a 35 second spawn. With just those two items we see that all the above are being considered and weighed up ~3 times per minute. Both players do not need to contest all items but you need to be conscious of what is going on.
When people say that quake is fast they usually mean the movement is fast or the weapons kill quickly or similar. The “fast” aspect is actually following the game around the map and being at the relevant position.
Gametypes in arenafps games are item driven. This means that the items form the game and player interaction is dictated by items. We will start at the beginning and explain how this works before going further. Items in these gametype are resources and generally consist of armor, health, weapons, ammo and powerups. These pickups are scattered around the map players compete on and have a predefined respawn time after they are taken. Respawn is the act of the item reappearing on the map so it can be picked up again. Deathmatch is the base gametype in arenafps and has existed since quake1. This gametype is likely where the arenafps moniker of likely originates. Deathmatch can be played with two teams and is referred to as Team Deathmatch (TDM). 4v4 and 2v2 are common player numbers for TDM. The goal of deathmatch is to score the highest number of kills (frags) – suicides subtract a point.
Gametypes that were added after deathmatch, such as capture the flag(CTF) remain item driven but hapopularve additional objectives. In these other non-kill based scoring gametypes items dictate when players can attack with a higher likely hood of winning. Quite often items are overlooked in these other, non-deathmatch gametypes which is why they are worth mentioning. Items could almost be considered the objective rather than killing as they enable killing at a greater efficiency.
As previously mentioned items are resources in standard arena fps DM based gametypes. A player who has more resources has a better chance of winning a game. Players who collect items will have more health, more armor and more weapon options available. Basic health packs will heal a player to their base health which is usually 100. Armor adds a layer on top of health allowing players to take more damage, generally splitting damage between health and armor. Armor is one of the large player interaction drivers.
If a player has enough health to use the armor they have equipped then their stack is the sum of both. In cases where a player has low health and high armor it becomes more difficult to ascertain their exact stack at a glance. When armor has 50% absorption damage is distributed 1:1 health:armor. When absorption is 66.6..% damage is distributed 1:2 and when armor has an absorption of 75% damage is distributed 1:3. The shield belt in Unreal Tournament provides 100% absorption, protecting the players health pool until the belt is depleted. Absorption % does not play a large part in armor “strength” provided it is 50% or above, the absorption does change player behavior and overall macro movement of players but not the the amount of health available from armor unless the % is very low or the amount of health available >100 is large.
Weapons are important because they open up positioning options and provide utility along with raw killing power. Weapon options vary widely as they have different fire modes in arenafps compared to modern shooters. These fire modes can open up more efficient engagements at different ranges and with good weapons selection as well as appropriate positioning players can gain a large advantage over their opponent.
Items are removed from the map when they are picked up and respawn a set time after. Keeping track of this time is referred to as timing. This cycle of pickup and respawning sets the pace and tempo of the game and dictates where and what players want to be doing at a given point in time. Think of this as the overall macro of a game, it is one of the last skills a player will learn. When better players tell new players to “learn to time” this is actually what the end point is. The flow of the game around the map. This document will primarily be concerned with duel as it relies heaviest on a well thought out item setup, it also breaks the earliest if the setup is poorly thought out.
The assumption from this point onwards is that making players fight often is good.
Because items are resources and raise the chance of winning they cause players to move around maps in somewhat predictable manner. That is provided players understand that items are important and can follow the flow around the map – see previous note about being a “late to learn” skill. Players move around the map and fight over resources. New players may simply get a weapon and start trying to shoot their opponents. Intermediate players may understand their stack but not their opponents. Larger items are more sought after and are more likely to generate fights between players who want the pickup. Items and thus resources are limited by their respawn time. The respawn time also dictates how often part of a map could be used and maps are setup in a manner to facilitate interesting fights around larger items.
Smaller items help move players around the map and also provide sound cues to indicate where they are. Maps are often also designed so these items are not easily defensible, offering a large advantage to a player who simply arrives first(?). Players gain an advantage from picking up items and can then kill their opponent more efficiently (weapons) or have more effective health through health and armor. This allows players to deal less damage over the course of an encounter and come out ahead. For example in a situation where two players trade shots a player with 100health will die before their opponent with 200 health.
In Unreal Tournament duel the primary interaction driver is armor. The larger armors have the strongest pull on players as they provide the largest benefit – these are usually the shieldbelt (150a) and the vest (100a). During a duel players want to take items to buff themselves as well as deny the pickup to their opponent. This is commonly referred to as stacking – and total player health/armor numbers referred to as stack or their stack. The goal is usually to have as much stack differential – difference in stack as possible.
At the start of a game large items may be split and players may have similar stack, however as time passes, damage is dealt or players die one will come to have control. Map control. Item control. However you choose to spin it. Once one player establishes control they have a significant resource advantage and able to refresh their armor and health each time a major item spawns. This player is referred to as the in control player. The player without access to the higher value items and without stack is called the out of control player.
Player behavior is heavily dictated by their stack and their level of control. When players pickup items they take note of the time on the game clock then return to the area to pick it up again once the respawn time has passed. The player with control tries to keep the advantage for as long as possible and the player out of control works on gathering smaller resources before fighting (contesting) a larger item. This slow build for out of control sets how long the player in control has an advantage. Historically this advantage is permanent in Unreal Tournament provided control is maintained. There is no way for a player to slow stack to match the in control player.
The most popular article on this site is related primarily to Unreal Tournaments lacking out of control play. The premise is that ut does not offer enough for the in control player to do while also hamstringing the out of control player too heavily. Since writing that piece it has occurred that while the system is flawed for out of control play it works as an interaction driver very well. The interaction driver aspect is one of the reasons why a quakelive armor transplant is not suggested often on this site and why I have not backed suggestions that are not fully thought through. At a basic level simply copying quakelive armor is unlikely to work because there are other factors at play in the game that help make it the game it is. Armorware demonstrate this. As does the “new” nerfed base armor system. Both “break” surprisingly quickly.
One important point to note is that resources are for picking up more resources. They are not, under normal circumstances for “spending” killing your opponent. Winning the fight at the first 100a spawn means a player has (depending on small armor pickups) a 100h benefit over their opponent going in to the next major spawn, which is the first belt. If a player was to get the 100a and then pressure their opponent heavily over the next 30 seconds they could potentially enter the fight at the belt spawn with no stack advantage, meaning they are less likely to stay in control. Players need to fight in order to get kills but they need to take fights at the right time and place and skew things as much in your favour as possible. This plays into later points about player interaction.
Large vs small items. Mega+ RA vs YA. Belt+100a vs 50a.
The size and importance of items determines the level of commitment a player will make. The amount of benefit (you/them) an item gives also determines the level of player commitment. For example when both players have no armor the 100a pickup is beneficial to both. When one player has 100a the item is still important to deny from the opponent in order to maintain stack advantage. However when both players have the item or the same amount of high armor neither needs to take the pickup until they suffer damage. It could be said that taking the item in these situations is bad as the larger pickups tends to put the player in a disadvantageous position, risking the stack they have. This depends on the map but is an acceptable rule of thumb when discussing the ideas. At this point players no longer need to contest items. A player no longer needs to make the dangerous trip to the belt on deck, or the 100a area on asdf, because it does not benefit them and it will no longer benefit their opponent.
Depending on the score line players can simply turtle up, possibly with a retreat line to resources. This idea can be extended further. In the current UT4 system a player on 100/75 is unlikely to commit to a fight at a large armor when they can take a small one elsewhere to get to 100/100. Unless their opponent is running all items this is easy. Likewise, even at the smaller armors the player does not need to commit heavily if their opponent is there before them as the gain is minimal. They may wish to use this opportunity to put damage on their opponent.
Another example of items that players may not want to commit to is the thigh pads on dm-deck16][ in ut99. This is because the item itself is in a precarious position in an area of the map the in control player is likely to be. By attempting to take the thighpads the out of control player is allowing damage. The risk:reward is very low. Larger items demand conflict and fighting over while smaller ones can be ceded or avoided at lower loss/gain.
By thinking about this we can understand how armor limits player interaction via “full” stack. This was not the case in previous titles when a player had control (UT2003 aside) as they always had belt+100a to work with at all times while the out of control player always had less. Because of this the in control player always wanted to deny the belt+100a. In older titles “control” was not belt only or 100a only. It must be both large items on a map in order to keep the requirement of picking up the items.
Items as an interaction driver and level of commitment related to their relative sizes. Once we understand control and denial and reasons for why players seek to pickup items we can see how different items have different values. Players either want to stack themselves or limit their opponent’s resources through denial. These are the primary reason why players fight over pickups. These are the primary reasons players fight in duel. This dynamic/macro is the game.
A player can lose a fight at an item and not get the pickup but the fight can still be beneficial because the damage helps keep their opponents stack lower than if they did not contest. Note this does not mean dying, just losing the fight and backing off. In Unreal Tournament the time at which you deal damage in relation to items spawns is important. Using the UT99 armor system as an example which has similarities to all the UT titles, with the exceptions being 2k3 (stacking) and current ut4 (stacking) and ut4 armorware. Dealing of damage is somewhat backwards if items are the reasons players fight as the optimum time to deal damage is after pickups. This is because 100-150 armor damage dealt before large primary armors that cause fights will be refreshed. This is due to the maximum armor vs pickup values. In order to deal effective damage that is lasting a player needs to hit their opponent after he picks up the armor, this way he is at a lower armor value going into the next large spawn, provided this is not refreshed on the 50a/25a.
It is “backwards” because while fights are setup at an armor the most beneficial time to damage the in control opponent and risk your lower stack is after they have taken the pickup. This sets your opponent at a lower total going into the next item spawn. Alternatively the ooc player needs to damage the stacked player a significant amount of time before the next major spawn but not at the preceeding one, which is difficult as the enemy is less predictable during this time period.
For the out of control player contesting is questionable as you need to deal >armor value worth of damage in order for it not to be refreshed. Using the “old” ut4 system If a player is on 100/150 and take direct rocket(100) just before picking the 100a they will be on 60/150. If the 150 was belt they will be on 100/150(50b/100a).
This is not the case in quakelive as the armors do not max out/almost max out armor in one pickup so players are less likely to be at full stack. In UT this is backwards to what should occur and helps to make fighting at armors less appealing. With the UT system it cannot change as the items are large and stack to max very quickly. This is a feature of Unreal Tournament duel and a contributing factor to why in control is strong while having strong interaction drivers but at the same time is why interaction drivers can break.
For example a player locking down the two largest pickups in all existing games will have an advantage over their opponent at all times and in order to continue this advantage they need to keep taking the belt + 100a. Their opponent has no way to stack armor as the pickup behavior in older titles does not allow this. However they know exactly where their opponent will be due to the strong requirement to keep picking the belt + 100a up. This leads to the player being able to contest an item reliably.
Note that this may sound like it is going against the previously linked popular article, however that still stands – in control does not have a large time spend and out of control does not have a way to stack. What does exist is the requirement for the in control player to take items. Once the out of control player gets the 100a due to mistakes on the in control players part they are free to do what they like. We have reached the point of reduced interaction incentive.
Both your stack and your opponents stack are a consideration for what resources players want to take and deny. Your stack is a consideration for obvious reasons – do you need armor? Do you need to risk your stack for more armor? Can you stack more in a less dangerous manner? Eg taking the 50a to go from 100a to 150a rather than contesting the belt or 100a for an additional 50a. Your opponents stack is less obvious and enemy stack estimation plays an important role here. How much does your opponent have – if you are full/high and they are full/high then contesting or committing to a fight is not required as the benefit from the pickup will be minimal for either player.
Beyond armor Unreal Tournament 4 weapons behave in a similar manner to small armors, or armors that will only give players a small boost – the aforementioned 50a instead of belt/100a scenario. Players are unlikely to commit to a fight over a weapon since their stack/life is more valuable than the potential benefits of a weapon. Weapons are a one way street per life, once they have picked up a weapon the player has it till death. Because of this players can opt to avoid conflict at weapons and return later. Even in 2k4 where weapon denial was potentially important there are very few examples of players actually fighting over the weapons (LG/shock). On top of this there were few examples of players running hard control on LG/shock. Once again this is because players are not going to commit to a fight for just a weapon, in a game where the weapons are all quite strong.
Weapons were timed as major part of the game in quakeworld TDM but no other arenafps that I am aware of. This dynamic is less interesting for duel/1v1 because it creates a situation where you need a weapon in order to contest a weapon that you need. Once you have a weapon you do not need to revisit it unless you wish to deny or if it is the only ammo source on the map.
Resources are the reason players fight and when resources are not required players should no longer be fighting over pickups. This goes beyond the individual player needing it as denial is very important. Once both players have a decent armor stack they should be less willing to risk themselves for large pickups where fights will usually occur. For example using armorware (max 150) a player on 125armor no longer needs to contest the belt or the 100a as the 25a or 50a is sufficient to cap out, provided their opponent also has decently high armor. If we were to have a scenario where player A has 150a from contol and player B has 100a from smaller pickups over a longer time period neither player needs the large pickups anymore. This leads to a less focused game and makes players harder to predict as fights are not setup by items. If there is score differential in this situation then the leading player can turtle up and play defensively.
The mega in quake makes the above scenario impossible and makes sure there is always an item that both players want. A single pickup for a different resource ensures there will always be at least one pickup both players want. Both want it when neither has it in order to stack. The player that got the last spawn wants it to deny, even if they have not taken damage. The player that did not get it last spawn wants it to stack. Both of these will occur every spawn because it is unique, there is no other way to gain health over 100. +5h bubbles are rare in ql duel and do not change player behavior in relation to the mega. This is without taking health decay into account, which further amplify the in control players want for the item. This is where decay makes sense, unlike armor where once a player caps out they only need +25 every 25 seconds to stay at max stack. A single pickup on a longish (35s) respawn means that even without damage the player will want to take it.
In base ut4 the belt is trying to take the place of the mega by being the only “overheal” item available. However its long spawn combined with its low benefit (+50 instead of +100) mean it is ineffective at being a large driver in the same way as mega.
kluczmen: using rail in QC is a bit of a gamble,
Is that because of relatively low stacks compared to ql.
With even a light stack in ql (lets say 100/100) a player would shrug off 80dmg rail at range as they need to take another two hits without picking any health before death. A sinlge 25h would make this three hits.
200-80 | 120-80 | 60-120 | dead
The initial rail does not put them in a dangerous situation.
This extends to a more heavily stacked player in ql – who can basically ignore rails when at 200/200. If they have control the smaller armors a rail after 200/200 will put them at ~173/146 – which will be stacked to ~173/~200 on their next YA pickup.
When one compares this to the lighter stack heros in qc the problem becomes more apparent. You can take two rails and a small amount of extra health before death.
Perhaps it would be interesting to look at how qc with ligher champions plays compared to t4 in ql as stack is potentially much lower there in an even game.
This “steps of damage to death” is an interesting aspect and has been roughly the same in all the previous quake games. It is not just the amount of effective health (400hp@full stack) but the damage weapons in relation to this and the number of hits it takes to kill a player.
Looking at the amount of damage a weapon deals is not the whole story, which is why switching around the rail damage a little bit (60 or 70 or 90 or whatever) is only a small part of the story. Does this matter? Not overly because you still only need to take one rail before you are one rail + a touch of lg away from death.
What the fuck does this have to do with what I quoted? The lighter characters cannot play a run an poke game because as soon as they trade rails they are heavily on the back foot compared to ql where they are still two rails away from this point.
This means in order to play run and poke they are gambling their rail % vs their opponents vs their opponents situational awareness on them. If their opponent hits they are heavily on the back foot.
This aspect is very much like ut. In ut a fully armored player has around 350 effective hp BUT this can be burst down in two shots and the out of control unstacked player has maybe 150 which can be one shot. This is a very simplistic overview so please no pedantics.
UT duel could potentially be an indicator of what qc duel ends up looking like.
As of writing the Unreal Tournament 4 armor system has been 50% absorption for about a year. This has some interesting and potentially unintended flow on effects that are worth looking at. These are not specifically bad or good and this is not an attempt to paint the system in a bad light (that is reserved for another post) however the consequences of 50% absorption are worth looking at.
50% causes health to be sought out more often and raises its value. This is because any time a player has even health to armor ratio and damage occurs they will seek out health as it the only thing (besides belt) that increases their effective health pool. Health is the easier to get because is more abundant on maps and is on a shorter respawn than armor. With 50% absorbtion any armor above your health will not be used before you die.
If you have 100h 100a and take 100 damage you will be at 50h 50a. In order to raise your effective health you must take health packs, mega, vials or the belt. Of these health is the primary method as it has the shortest respawn and maps usually have a decent amount scattered throughout. This is not too different to higher absorption, 66% or 75% as players want to heal up with this armor as well, however there are other options. With 66% when a player at 100h100a takes 100 damage they will have 66/33 – allowing them to take armor in order to stack up as well as health. Historically the player with 100/100 is usually in control.
*something about health being ooc players resource in higher %s as the in control player can get armor to “stack”.
The flow on from here is interesting in macro duel dynamics. 50% weakens in control as the player has to spend time getting health when in the past they could potentially get by with armor only. This pushes players to health more often which has some flow on to look at shortly.
However before that we will go back and compare 50% and 66% absorption and while we are at it lets look at belt from earlier ut4/ut99 perspective with 150 points of 100% absorption armor.
Is armor or belt better historically?
Been wanting to write this for a while.
Belt offers 100% absorption for 150 points of armor. Armor offers less than 100% in smaller amounts. In arena fps games popular absorption numbers are 66% or 75% – probably because these translate to 2:1 and 3:1 damage to armor:health. When ut4 development started there were massive misconceptions involving armor. Players believed that belt was significantly stronger purely because of its 100% absorption. Some of the math posted early on was cringeworthy, to be completely honest up until overwatch release players still did not have an understanding of how health/armor interacted.
For a single pickup and time spend the belt is better, it nets the player more resources than the 100a or 50a. Belt is superior to armor is when player health is very low and picks it up – it instantly translates to remaining health (lets say sub 20 to be super low) plus 150. Quite the effective health boost to 170. This scenario was a main gripe from the “nerf belt” camp. Going back to the hilarious math one common-ish suggestion for belt was to “lower the absorption a little bit below 100%”. If we lower absorption to 95% players need around 5 health to service 100 points of belt. This manages to do nothing to address the perceived problem as the low health player can still use a decent amount of the belt.
Low health pickups of belt did not happen frequently, however it could easily be considered “annoying” as it would occur when the out of control player takes the pickup from the in control player. This annoyance and skewed perception of the problem is due to cognitive bias. Players losing control to sheer luck of not getting off quite enough damage then their opponent resetting their health with a belt grab.
However for most other situations armor is better. We will use the current armorware settings (66% absorption) vs belt (150@100%) as the example here as it is the simplest to demonstrate with. For this example players will take 100 points of damage. Comparing a player with 100h/150a(66%) vs 100h/150b(100%)
After 100 damage the armor player (100h150a) will be left on 67h84a. This player can take health – a readily available pickup, that is included on maps quite freely on a 20s respawn. By taking two health packs they are back to 100h84a – 184 effective health. They are also able to stack on armor which the game has them contesting anyway.
The belt player (100h150b) will be left on 100h50b, the same total as the armor player. In order to increase their effective health they need to take armor or belt. They are unable to heal with health packs as they have taken no health damage. This means that if an armor is coming up soon they are forced to contest with 150 effective health. This is a disadvantage.
Health packs spawn faster and there are usually more of them on a map than armor. Likewise players are not fighting over health packs in the same way as belt/100a and armor is rarely left up like health. In a “normal” duel where players are contesting the belt/100a the previously mentioned damage has a good chance to have occurred during a fight over one of these two items. This actually segues into an interesting subject – when is the best time to damage a player who is taking a pickup? Before or after pickup? Consider it.
This is where armor becomes better than belt for the same amounts, and this scenario of backing off before dying and healing occurs frequently in high level play. This is why armor is generally superior to belt for most situations. If the above scenario played out ten times over the course of a duel the player with armor who consistently heals ends up with a ~350hp benefit over their opponent. 350 additional damage needed to be dealt out by their enemy. This is not to say that players have a great deal of control over how this occurs, or that players would leave the belt up because they think armor is better, but in some ways belt is more limiting for the in control player.
This is one of the side benefits from lower absorption armor. If you take a fight at 100h100a, suffer 100 damage you are now on 50h50a. Healing with health packs to 100h50a give you an effective health pool of 150hp. If armor is 66% you will have 100/34a. In some ways this benefits the player in control by making armor last longer than it would otherwise, while also making the in control player need to use health at a faster rate than higher absorption values. It also skews things towards the in control play by virtue of them having more armor. If you are 100h/50a@50% and take 100 damage you end up with no armor. If you are 100/50a@25% and take 100 damage you have 25h/25a. This is a potential benefit of lower absorption on the thighpads in ut99. Note how this works in other games like quake where you can stack to 200armor is slightly different and it skews things differently.
Back to 50%, how does this affect the overall macro of duel
Because 50% causes health to be sought out more often players will gravitate towards health packs more than in the past. This allows players to setup ambushes on health. Health ambushes have always been an option and a clever way to convert kills, however with the higher importance of health they occur much more frequently at 50%. This is because health, not armor, becomes the go to, even for the in control player.
This is where problems arise. The game in its current state is skewed more towards setting up fights on health packs than in the past. This in and of itself is not a problem, however maps are designed to have fights around the belt or the 100a. Most maps are not designed to have fights at their health pickups. Health packs are shuffled off in corners, generally not setup in interesting ways.
So mappers could make ut maps more interesting, but currently they are not. This is the biggest problem from the current armor system.
Also overall macro game flow of healing for large item spawns, contesting and fighting is lessened, instead replaced with scrappy fights over +25 bubbles by injured players. But these fights are not assured as players can simply go their own way and heal up from different health locations. In non-serious games this might be more fun, but when winning is important taking the risk to pursue a low health opponent when you are also on low health is rolling the dice. In general better to go and heal. The difference with other, larger, more important pickups (100a/belt in ut and mega/ra in ql) is that skipping them is only an option at times when they clash – and in comparison both lots of health being up is likely.
In older titles with higher absorption the more stacked player could continue going for armors while their weaker opponent restacked on health. Splitting of resources in a manner of speaking. With 50% both players require it at roughly the same rate and this could be considered a nerf to out of controls ability to stay alive as the in control player also wants health as a primary resource.
Allow me to preface this with a note – I am very pro weaponstay off and think it is a defining feature of ut duel. However watching some Quakeworld duel last week got me thinking about weaponstay on in duel because, well.. Quakeworld duel is played with weaponstay on.
It got me wondering, could those ut2k4 1on1 maps work with weaponstay on? It is highly unlikely I am the first person to have this thought – they were simply too small to work with weaponstay off so the logical first place to go would be weaponstay on. Unless you liked strings of spawn frags that is. The downside of turning weaponstay on is the removal of a large part of controls power and almost completely reducing the pickups on the map.
Let us think think through and see how weaponstay off could potentially affect duel.
Firstly why did Quakeworld get me thinking? Because it is played with weaponstay on players need to rely on ammo pickups rather than weapon pickups to fuel their guns. This adds a different layer of resource management. This is an aspect that I feel ut lacks – it is very “two item” centric in duel. 150/100 at the expense of other pickups. Historically it is also skewed towards the in control player.
Quakeworld has an interesting drop system. Players drop backpacks, which contain their currently equipped weapon as well as all ammo they have for all weapons. In duel this means that there is an abundance of ammo, if your opponent is picking up weapons and ammo and you are killing them and picking up their backpack you have a steady resupply. In this way ammo plays less of a role than it could. One aspect that is interesting is the lightning gun. Some maps have very sparse ammo, and over the course of a game the “strength” of the LG goes up as players accumulate ammo and drop it. Initially not super strong due to lack of ammo which becomes more abundant over time. Not particularly interesting in this example but just another quirky aspect of a game.
Dropping the equipped weapon is important in TDM* but not so important in duel. There are two main weapons and if you are killing your opponent you likely have at least one of them already, plus the maps are quite small and the time spend to obtain the weapons is not great. At least on maps like aero and dm4 – perhaps dm2, dm6 or ztn are a different story.
*Important to the point players use binds to autoswitch to/off rocketlauncher when shooting to avoid dropping it on death.
Weaponstay off allows players to deny weapons and stack their ammo all at the same time. The weapons are typically the largest ammo supply available on the map unless it contains ammo double stacks. In this way it is usually a better time spend for the in control player to deny weapons and stack their ammo using the largest available ammo source – the weapons themselves.
Ut99 and 2k4 duel were also played with weapon stay off and it was rarely suitable to play them with weaponstay on. The primary detractor for ws on from an “end game” perspective is the drop weapon.. bug both games featured. Players who drop their weapon before running out of ammo are able to pick it up again for a free refill. Unlimited ammo.
To me this is a larger problem than removing the strategy/tactics via denial that weaponstay on presents. It leads to less weapon variation due to ammo consumption and creates the opposite of denying your opponents favorite weapon – it allows them to use it at all times, with little fear of ammo running out.
So weaponstay on for the 2k4 1on1 maps made no sense because it heavily “flattens” player requirements. Sure there is still a benefit from being able to use other weapons but if you can just use the one you are most comfortable with the majority of the time it leads to blander, less interesting games.
If dropweapon was fixed to not allow unlimited ammo what would occur? As a respawning player weapons would be much more readily available. This would speed up the game in many ways, allowing players to +forward almost as soon as they spawn if they choose to. The in control player would need to either collect ammo or the weapons they have not picked up yet – initially the weapons probably provide a better time spend for both the additional slots and double ammo pickup.
As in control time progresses we would find that the in control player needs to spend more time collecting ammo as well as controlling belt/100a – assuming that armors stay the same. This pushes them away from weapons as they can no longer ammo up or deny this resource.
Up to this point things have not been super interesting, just slightly different to what exists in the game now, possibly with more +forward potential for the out of control player.
However when you consider that the out of control player could potentially control ammo and to a degree the effectiveness of the in control player, things suddenly interesting. Maps may need to be revisited for this to work decently, but if the out of control player could sweep up the shock ammo on the map, effectively neutering their opponent, the down player is given a way back into the game that is not damage or stacking themselves, it is almost inverse weapon denial to the player who is at a disadvantage.
The fortnite double pump shotgun is great.
Depending on how ammo is placed on the map it can either provide a large time spend with 2-3 ammo locations per weapon, making the in control player move around more or provide a potential conflict point if there is only one spot on the map the in control player can ammo up.
A big part of why ut weapons do not drive interaction and fights is the sheer number of them, combined with additional ammo on the map means that players do not really need to fight for them. They are a resource but they are not an interaction driver in the way armor and health are. Risking stack (scarce) for an item that is very available, especially so after the 20s spawn change is not a good choice. You can almost always go elsewhere and get ammo.
If weaponstay was turned on and ammo was limited to one place on the map per weapon (double stacks for most weapons) players, particularly the in control player when getting kills, would become much more predictable while also changing how important the pickup itself is. This would lead to 1-2 locations for a weapon vs the current 2 (assuming one ammo pack somewhere on the map) to 4(three packs). And two locations are only present for the initial pickup, after that the only option player have is the single ammo location, which can be controlled and fought over due to much more limited options. If you forgo picking up ammo or fighting for it you lose access for the next 30s.
Ammo becomes a resource to fight over.
This would also boost the importance of dropped weapons, which could potentially give players a closer “top up” option than the ammo packs themselves.
In control can still deny weapons by camping them but does so at the expense of being able to do other things, get armor, heal or get ammo. Denying a particular weapon becomes a larger time spend than simply picking up the weapon and leaving the area, often on the way to something else. This could also provide a point of conflict as a player who wants the weapon may choose to fight to get it in this situation.
One of each weapon was required on a ut4 duel map in the past because without seven pickups control becomes far too easy with a 30s respawn. If a map only had three weapons you could completely choke out your opponent with little effort. With weapon stay on mappers could potentially create levels with more variety. A map could have three weapons and still be viable. Ammo locations may need to be spread out more in this example as you would run into the same “easy to deny” problem with weapon stay off and three weapons.
The current ut4 weaponstay would also need to be changed so the player cannot pick it up again after 20seconds.
It would be different and I think it has as much potential for interest as the current setup does. Ideally you would want authors to specify the preferred weaponstay mode for their map.
It would surely add some flavour.
It is straight forward to remove a ut4 HUD element. You need to remove the reference in your game.ini file.
For example remove “RequiredHudWidgetClasses=/Game/RestrictedAssets/UI/HUDWidgets/bpHW_WeaponInfo.bpHWWeaponInfo” to disable the text that pops up when you switch weapons.
The ini is usually found C:\Users\username\Documents\UnrealTournament\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor
PayBack; I really think Epic and this community need to take a good hard look at what makes a successful game in todays market. Quake added classes, for better or worse, I think its fair to say that giving players variety in their characters and play style is a very important piece of modern day video games. People want a tailored experience, they want to use characters and weapons that best suit their play style and needs. Back in the late 90s early 2000s, video games were all about skill.
Your argument is basically “well other franchises do it so ut should as well”. ut should do it if it creates a better game, not just because – perhaps in the case of flagrun classes make sense.
arenafps have “classes” and these are often harder counters than similar setups in class based games. Players have always had the ability to have variety in play style in arena shooters, quite often in a wider range than similar class based games. The main difference is that you do not spawn with the “class”, you need to pick it up AND you have access to other classes provided you spend time picking up those other weapons.
If you have sniper you are able to play in a way that a player without sniper can basically not counter without obtaining one of their own. This is a super hard counter.
If you have a close range weapon the same applies. In ut4 this somewhat comes undone because there are so many close range weapons.
A big part of the “problem” is that players do not “see” this as classes, while the sniper example, at least in ut, basically hard counters everything at long range. This is why loadouts in quakelive were not a huge “problem”. Players could not get rockets/lg/rail out of the gate and could only select one of the holy trinity. This meant they were only maximum effective at one range.
If we take this example to CTF and item layout we can change things in the following manner. Using the sniper as an example.
1) Put the sniper on the way to the enemy flag, where players will always go when attacking. The sniper is now a “fast” weapon as you can pick it up on the way to the enemy base without spending any time. The location of the shock on ctf-outside would be an example of this.
2) Put the sniper out of the way, possibly even away from spawn points. The sniper is now a “slow” weapon and if players wish to use it they must take time to obtain it, cutting into their attacking time. An example here would be placing the sniper up near the top rockets on ctf-outside, possibly extending the corridor further, while making sure to remove any spawns around here. See the image below, if the rifle was off frame where the green arrow is pointing.
Obviously this is not the same as having fast/slow characters like teamfortress does, however it does impact the game. If players need to spend X seconds each life obtaining a weapon rather than going straight for the enemy base, this will heavily cut into the amount of time they have to attack over the course of a game. This is also quite limited in ut4 because all many of the weapons fulfill the same role.
And yet if mappers did this with popular weapons, for example the ctf-outside example, it would be criticized by the player population for odd placement. “Sniper is too far away from the common thoroughfares” would probably be feedback.
The more skill you had the better you were at the game.
Epic should use gathered stats to give players a class(ification). If a player uses more sniper they are labelled that way. If a player dodges significantly more than average at their skill level they given another title. And so on. If the skill ceiling is high, and broad enough players themselves become “classes” based on how they play. The same way a player has a reputation for using shock, rockets, superior movement, timing, etc but everyone will get a “class” rather than a handful of the best players. On the flip side qualities that are low, like average speed, top speed, distance traveled could be taken into account and used to describe the player. If you aim well, but never time or pickup health packs you get a particular title that is less than flattering.
For example, when I was playing I had super high 100a/50a pickups compared to belt pickups compared to everyone I played, even when looking through other players from other regions.
This is not just to classify a player, but to also make them feel unique without giving them ability points to distribute.
[QUOTE=’PayBack;n387084′]
I dont want character progression that unlocks special abilities, just something to give a player a tiny little edge and something to work for. Maybe one player builds a character with 5% further dodge, this allows him to more easily make a trick jump that a non leveled player would have a more difficult time with. Those are the tiny leveling schemes im talking about. Not some major special ability unlock.[/QUOTE]
Movement should be designed so it is deep enough for differences between players to manifest themselves naturally. UT movement may not allow for enough differentiation between players and if that is the case then perhaps that would be excellent to look at.
Because quake movement uses mouse movement it tends to differentiate player skill much better. imo anyway.
Some more random thoughts after a guy sperged out about class based UT in the Open Tournament discord.
Having access to all the weapons and players being even on spawn is one aspect that is pretty core to afps and I’m unsure if it is a thing that turns people away or not. Many of the aspects listed for what is essentially a class game (weapon restrictions, players having more/less health etc) occur organically in most ut games already. The maps define this to a degree – if you spawn at x you can take a fast route to wherever you are needed but you are then limited to talking the weapons presented during that route. You can detour, take other weapons at the expense of time. You can use your less preferred weapon or a weapon that is less ideal for a situation (because you lack others due to death -> spawn -> goto action quickly) which makes you a less ideal “class”. Your team can choose to stack players at the expense of other players. Of you want attackers to be stacked but defenders take 100a do they then attack? You call you have chunked Bob for 150 and he is now low, the “weak” class. Some players are better with some weapons than others (and making the weapons as different as possible would be important for this point) so (for example) if Bob prefers the sniper and is the most effective on a team with it he will likely use it over other weapons, effectively becoming the “sniper”. Some players are better at movement than others and are naturally the flag runner/fast class. Go wild and make a class game but.. don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Because the games already do what you want. Finally the guy that was talking about this wanted
I would like for the mod to have actually have randomized roles,
Yup. Random.
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